As Election Day approaches, we took and in-depth look at our Congressional model to see if there were any districts in need of polling. We just went over 500 House polls released in 2018, and they have been distributed fairly well; there is at least one public poll in every single one of our Lean GOP, toss-up, or Lean Dem seats, and out of the 117 seats we consider any bit competitive, only 15 have not received polling. But, we did identify two districts where some fresh polling might help us and other forecasters.
Race Backgrounds
In Arizona’s 1st congressional district, Wendy Rogers has been releasing some of her internal numbers, showing her up as much as 6 points. No non-partisan public polling or Democratic internals have been released. The seat leans GOP in terms of party composition, but the incumbent is a Democrat.
In Ohio’s 7th congressional district, a fairly strong Republican district, incumbent Bob Gibbs (R) has been outraised by his challenger by nearly a 3 to 1 margin for the cycle, and was still behind on cash on hand going into the final stretch. Two Democratic internals have been released, showing Gibbs leading by only single digits. Until earlier this week, we had the race as Lean R despite being an R+12 seat.
Why Poll?
We suspected these races might look a little different than the available polling might indicate, so we polled them ourselves to take a look. The following is a summary of our results, from surveys of these two districts conducted on October 31st through November 1st.
Some up-front notes about our methodology to keep in mind when digesting these results: these polls were conducted using IVR (automated calls). As a result, we are only able to sample landlines. Relevant to AZ-1, the calls were only conducted in English. For our purposes, or for modeling within the races, IVR should be good enough. We correct for potential biases as much as possible by pulling sample balanced on the characteristics of the likely voter universe and through post-stratification. Our results are weighted by age group, gender, party, and race/ethnicity.
Arizona CD 1 Results
In a ballot test between incumbent Tom O’Halleran (D) and Wendy Rogers (R), we find O’Halleran leading by 3 points, 48% to 45%. Trump’s approval rating in the district sits at 49% approval to 45% disapproval. Within the congressional district, we find McSally (R) leading Sinema (D), 49% to 46% for Senate (the district’s PVI is R+2).
Ohio CD 7 Results
In a ballot test between incumbent Bob Gibbs (R) and Ken Harbaugh (D), we find Gibbs leading by 19 points, 55% to 36%. Trump’s approval rating in the district sits at 54% approval to 39% disapproval. Within the congressional district, we find DeWine (R) leading Cordray (D), 52% to 37% for Governor (the district’s PVI is R+12).